


What She Wants

by Haruka_1224



Category: BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 06:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12743058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haruka_1224/pseuds/Haruka_1224
Summary: Chisato wants someone just as decorated as her, someone worthy enough to share the spotlight with. At least, that’s what Kaoru thinks she wants. That is why Kaoru is working so hard, acting so much, to try and become somebody deserving of her smile.Little does she know, all Chisato wants is Kaoru herself, without any lies and acts and frilly sparkles.





	What She Wants

**_Kaoru_ **

 

Chisato wants someone just as decorated as her, someone worthy enough to share the spotlight with. At least, that’s what Kaoru thinks she wants.

It’s hard to think otherwise, really, when Chisato looks at her with those cold, distant eyes and casually says words that cut into her like a thousand knives. Kaoru just isn’t good enough yet, she’s nothing but a member of a _high school drama club_ without any professional acting experience. Someone like her doesn’t deserve to even linger in Chisato’s presence, yet she still does, she still dares to let her name escape her lips without an honorific.

Chisato is perfection itself, a child actress that blossomed into a beautiful, calm and collected young lady. From television shows to movies to plays and musicals, she took to every stage like a swan to water, elegant and graceful. Even being an idol came to her as easily as breathing, or so it seemed - Pastel Palettes is a huge success and Chisato couldn’t possibly have any more fans.

Kaoru, in comparison, is the ugly, deformed little duckling waddling in her shadow. Her resume is just a number of similar roles (all princes or handsome schoolboys) performed on small, negligible stages - community events, festivals, school plays, nothing really worth mentioning. Unlike Chisato, who’s graced many a poster, playbill, magazine and television, Kaoru has nothing. She _is_ nothing.

That is why, Kaoru believes, Chisato treats her the way she does, to remind her that just because they were childhood friends does not make her special. She needs to work harder, to get better, to prove that she meant those words she had said back then. If those words even matter anymore.

Chisato is no longer the little girl that played hide-and-seek with Kaoru when no one else would. She’s no longer the girl that comforted Kaoru when she scraped her knee, when she failed a test or got yelled at by her mother. Sometimes, Kaoru can be hard pressed to find a trace of that girl she loved in this new Chisato, this beautiful and pure maiden with distance in her eyes and ice in her spine.

Even so, Kaoru loves her, misses her; it’s almost pathetic how intensely and desperately she feels it. So she throws herself into her acting, into the warm arms of her princely persona, trying to be better, better, _better_ , until she finally deserves to stand by Chisato’s side again.

It’s difficult, it’s exhausting, Kaoru can barely even eat something without second-guessing herself. Does the food suit what a prince would enjoy, is the way she eats it elegant and handsome, are her gestures masculine enough without being sloppy or rude? Are people watching her - most of the time, the answer is yes, and are they impressed with her? (The answer to that is also mostly yes.) Everywhere she goes, she needs to maintain her mask of princely perfection; she is not allowed to have doubts or fears or regrets, unless she is within the privacy of her own room.

She abandons whatever she must, be it favorite foods, toys or hobbies. She bottles up her shyness, her tendency to cry at the drop of a hat, forcing it so far down it will never see the light of day again. She doesn’t care about dignity, eagerly going overboard with her flirting and increasing her dramatic flair to crazy levels, spending every waking moment caught up in an acting fervor.

She takes on role after role, never giving herself a moment’s rest. There are weeks when her schedules overlap and she spends dawn to dusk at various rehearsals, days when she has to play a prince for an elementary school play in the afternoon and a woodcutter for a community event in the evening. Kaoru doesn’t let it throw her off - what kind of actress would she be if she did? She plays each and every role with the specific devotion it requires, pours every inch of her tired soul into them, no matter what it costs her.

She takes every opportunity she can manage, sacrificing sleep and food and friendships. She even took a modeling job from an agency that insisted she was a man once, though admittedly, the photoshoot suited her aesthetic brilliantly and probably contributed to her now-expanding fan club. Her name is starting to get out there, she’s receiving invites to auditions instead of having to hunt for them herself and Hello Happy World! is making bigger ripples in the music community than she initially expected.

Still, it isn’t enough.

Chisato’s too far ahead, wrapped in the spotlight as if it were a dress made just for her. By the time Hello Happy World! even found a location to play at, Pastel Palettes had already released their first album _and_ had a sellout concert. Unfortunately, the band isn’t Kaoru’s, it consists of more members than herself, and she cannot force them to work harder. It isn’t princely for her to pressurize girls, anyway, so she has to settle for the band’s steady crawl.

What’s worse is that Chisato seems to like Kanon, Kaoru’s sweet, soft-spoken, airheaded drummer. Kaoru can understand why, the girl is kind in ways one wouldn’t expect from a senior high schooler, but she cannot help but feel jealous.

Why is Chisato willing to show Kanon warmth, why is she willing to go out with her and laugh with her and do… friendly things together? Kanon is the type of girl that can’t find her way out of a paper bag and Chisato can’t tell the difference between the Ginza line and the Fukutoshin line, so they spend most of their time either hopelessly lost or on the way to becoming so. Despite that, Chisato always seems happy to be with her, all smiles and reassurances and warm words that Kaoru would never get.

It’s painful, trying to figure out why she’s below Kanon in Chisato’s eyes. Kanon isn’t an actress, she doesn’t have a better track record or more magazine and television appearances or anything of the sort. So why is Kanon acceptable, why is she worth enough to smile at, when Kaoru is not?

It hurts, but Kaoru isn’t going to let it show. No, she’s not going to dwell on _why_ or _how_ or _what_ , she’s just going to focus on herself and what she can change. She’ll work harder, she’ll take on more roles and stay up later, she’ll continue laminating scripts to memorize even in the shower, drowning herself in coffee and using increasingly unhealthy methods to stay awake.

One day, she’ll be the perfect prince that Chisato wants. One day, she’ll break through those walls of ice her friend had put up around her heart, and she’ll find the kind, sweet and comforting Chisato waiting for her yet again.

Slamming her fist into the wall, Kaoru lets the pain pierce through her foggy brain, keeping her awake. She’s got a new monologue to memorize and two new plays to look at and consider auditioning for, there is no time for a luxury such as sleep.

For Chisato, she’ll keep working. For Chisato, she tells herself as blood runs sticky between her fingers, everything is for the sake of that girl and that promise, even if neither of them truly exist anymore.

“Kaoru, are you awake?” Her mother’s voice breaks through, and she looks up in surprise to realize than the sun has already risen. When did that happen, how did the hours slip through her fingers faster than her own blood?

Putting on her best smile, Kaoru says, “I rise with the sun, after all.”

Her mother chuckles, bemused, “Practicing so early in the morning? You better come down for breakfast before you become late.”

She nods energetically, trying to pretend that her head is swimming and her eyes aren’t burning. She can’t quite remember how many days it’s been since she last had any sleep, but it honestly isn’t important enough to waste brain cells on. She needs every single one she has to memorize her lines, because she’s auditioning for Hamlet next week and he’s got quite a lot of lines.

Fortunately, she’s a pretty good actor, if she says so herself. No one suspects a thing as she heads off to school, even though it took her three tries to even get her feet into her shoes because of the way everything is spinning. Her smile is quite distracting, she has been told, and she certainly knows how to use it to her advantage.

“Kaoru-kun!” Halfway down the road, she is assaulted by Hagumi and Kokoro, their childish energy further sapping away at hers. “Good morning!”

“Good morning, little kittens!” Exhaustion be damned, Kaoru is going to play her part and play it right.

“I was thinking of singing a new song,” Kokoro says cheerfully, launching off into an eager tirade about her next choice under the ever-watchful eye of her suited legion of security guards. “I think it would really suit Kaoru.”

“Oh?” She reacts automatically to the sound of her name, but nothing has really registered inside her head. It feels awfully fuzzy, as if her brain were stuffed with cotton, and she’s not sure if she’s even putting one foot in front of the other anymore.

“Kaoru-kun?”

She blinks, trying to make sense of the world and failing spectacularly. The ground seems to be swaying back and forth, blurring in and out of vision, and the pinpricks of pain she gets from digging her nails into her palms offer little solace.

Before she can respond, a hole seems to open up beneath her feet, plunging her into blissful darkness…

 

**_Chisato_ **

 

She never realized how much she disliked hospitals until she found herself waiting in one, sitting uncomfortably on her hands next to a hysterical Hagumi and Kokoro. It’s difficult for her to stay calm, to keep breathing and not strangle the two of them until they stop whining, because worry is eating up her insides and she wishes she could just let go and cry but she can’t, she can’t, she _can’t_.

So she just takes a deep breath, clenches her fists beneath her thighs and _acts_. “Please calm down, Kaoru will never be taken down by something like this.”

Hagumi sniffs and whimpers, looking up at her with big, watery eyes as Kokoro practically latches herself to Chisato’s arm (they’re so dramatic, Chisato can hardly believe Misaki hasn’t smashed their skulls in or rolled her own eyeballs out of their sockets).  Suppressing a sigh, she ruffles their hair and reassures them instead, trying desperately to believe the words coming out of her own mouth.

Kaoru will be alright, this is Kaoru after all, she’s energetic and annoying and nothing ever gets her down. Chisato’s known her since they were in pre-school, before Kaoru hit her growth spurt and turned into the beansprout that she is today. She’s a strong girl, she’s gotten stronger still in the years they had drifted apart, and at any moment they’ll be allowed to see that idiot who’ll undoubtedly have some stupid, princely line on her lips.

Chisato hates it, hates how obviously she can see through Kaoru’s mask (though she was the one who taught her to wear them in the first place, so she supposes it is to be expected). She hates how fake Kaoru’s smiles are, how hard she pushes herself to be someone she isn’t just so girls will like her.

Is Chisato’s approval not enough for her? Why does she need all those other girls swarming her, calling her name, dying to catch a glimpse of her pretty face? Why does she want them when her eyes remain so glassy, so empty, even when she’s surrounded by them? What is Kaoru’s goal in pretending to be a prince, or is she merely doing it because she cannot believe in who she really is?

Little Kaoru had always been insecure, a big crybaby who flustered easily and tripped over her own feet. She was awkward, small and short-haired and mistaken for a boy more often than not, but she had been genuine. She had truly been Seta Kaoru back then, confused and teary-eyed but _happy_ , unlike the exhausted, nervous girl she sees crouched behind this Kaoru’s blinding smile.

She’s afraid, afraid that no one will like who she really is, and Chisato has no idea how to tell her that _I do, you thickheaded idiot, is that not enough?_ Feelings aren’t her strong suit, she was trained to fake them and hide them and play around with them ever since she was a child. Sure, she can act like a frustrated, lovestruck fool, but somehow, a lump in her throat always stops her from saying what she wants.

So instead, Chisato is cold, hoping that someday her message will get through that thick skull of hers. _I liked you better as you are, without all the acting,_ she wants to scream, but all she can do is make disparaging comments about Kaoru’s career and pretend not be hurt by the pain in her eyes. If she shows her disapproval of all that flirting and dramatic flair, will Kaoru finally understand that she wants the exact opposite, that she wants awkwardness and raw sweetness that shines in stuttered words and shaking hands?

Finally, the doctor emerges, and it takes all of Chisato’s self-control not to fling herself at him like Hagumi and Kokoro do. Instead, she takes a deep breath, steadies her pounding heart and stays right by Kaoru’s mother, worried but in a mature, controlled way.

“The main problems were dehydration and exhaustion,” the doctor is patiently explaining, prying a weeping Kokoro off his arm as if she were a limpet, “She claims to have been absorbed in some Shakespeare, so much that she failed to drink or eat for several days.”

Chisato clenches her fists at that, partially wishing that they were wrapped around Kaoru’s pretty little neck instead. Yes, Shakespeare is an amazing playwright, but that does not mean you forget to keep your body alive for multiple days reading his work! Does Kaoru want to turn into another of his tragedies, wasting away buried in Hamlet and King Lear and Titus Andronicus or whatnot?

“It’ll be nice if you can help watch over her,” he turns to speak directly to Kaoru’s mother, who nods with tightly pursed lips.

Idiot, Kaoru is such an idiot. Is she trying to work herself to an early grave, ignoring her own body? She has limits too, and if she brings up some stupid quote about how fleeting human life is and how she is but an ephemeral flower in life’s garden, Chisato is going to strangle her with her own tie.

“She also claims to be unable to remember the last time she slept, though she sounded very… dramatic,” the doctor adds, almost as an afterthought. “She may have been exaggerating, but just in case, we will be keeping her in tonight for observation.”

Kokoro wipes her tears away slowly, obviously relieved to hear that Kaoru is her usual, rose-tinted, dramatic self, and Hagumi impatiently asks when they can all go in to see her. Flighty and foolish as they may be, these idiots really care for Kaoru in their own silly way.

“Not more than two at a time,” he warns, “And please try not to stress her out. She needs her rest.”

Lingering by the door, she watches as Kokoro and Hagumi rush in without any regard for Kaoru’s mother, leaping onto their friend with tears of relief and joy. Kaoru smiles at them, that fake, tired smile that only Chisato can see through, and she finds her heart sinking as she presses her fingers to the cool glass.

 _If only I could just tell you what I want,_ she sighs, slowly turning away, _but I’m too much of a coward for that._

“Aren’t you going to see her too, Chisato-chan?”

“I have rehearsal,” she lies easily, putting on her biggest, warmest smile. “Auntie, please tell Kaoru to watch out for her health.”

 _And tell her I miss her. The real her._ The most important words are ones that she will never be able to say.


End file.
